Gurinder Chadha to promote ‘Viceroy’s House’ in Australia

Melbourne, 6 April: The 1947 partition set forth in the Indian Independence Act 1947 resulted in the dissolution of the British Raj and gave birth to India and Pakistan at midnight on 14-15 August 1947. Millions were displaced and killed in communal riots. The grim consequences of partition reverberate to this day. The final months of the British Raj were tense and tough. It is the events in these months that Director Gurinder Chadha captures in her new movie ‘Viceroy’s House’.

Director Gurinder Chadha, will be here this month end to promote ‘Viceroy’s House’ scheduled to release in Australia on May 18. Gurinder Chadha, will present her new movie to audiences at a series of Q&A screenings in Sydney and Melbourne.

‘Viceroy’s House’, stars Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey), Gillian Anderson (The Pak), Michael Gambon (Emma, The Ha, Potter films), Manish Dayal and Huma Qureshi. The movie in English has music is by A.R. Rahman and runs for 106 minutes.

The movie tells the true story of the final months of British rule in India. Viceroy’s House in Delhi was the home of India’s British rulers. After 300 years, that rule was coming to an end. For 6 months in 1947, Lord Mountbatten, great-grandson of Queen Victoria, assumed the post of the last Viceroy, charged with handing India back to its people.

The film’s story unfolds within that great House. Upstairs lived Mountbatten together with his wife and daughter, downstairs lived their 500 Hindu, Muslim and Sikh servants. As the political elite – Nehru, Jinnah and Gandhi – converged on the House to wrangle over the birth of independent India, conflict erupted. A decision was taken to divide the country and create a new Muslim homeland: Pakistan. It was a decision whose consequences reverberate to this day.

It is a story that is deeply personal to Gurinder Chadha, whose own family was caught up in the tragic events that unfolded as the Raj came to an end.

Gurinder Chadha’s is best known for the hit films Bhaji on the Beach (1993), Bend It Like Beckham (2002), Bride and Prejudice (2004), Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008), and the comedy film It’s a Wonderful Afterlife (2010).